Monitoring and Evaluation

PMI continues to support the scale-up and monitoring of key malaria interventions in 19 focus countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In all PMI-supported countries, there is evidence of impact on malaria-related illness and death. For the period 2000-2015, the World Health Organization estimates that malaria deaths among children under five years of age in the Africa region fell by 58 percent. Deaths from malaria in Africa also decreased in all age groups, from 839,000 in 2000 to 438,000 in 2015. Similarly, the estimated number of malaria cases in all age groups in Africa dropped from 262 million cases in 2000 to 214 million cases in 2015. PMI has played a significant role in these reductions.

To evaluate impact in PMI focus countries and also guide programmatic decisions, PMI collects high-quality data through national and subnational population surveys, disease surveillance systems, and national health management information systems. PMI uses internationally-recognized indicators and coordinates its reporting with that of other agencies so that results can be compared over time and between countries. Among the indicators monitored are coverage rates for ITNs, IRS, and IPTp, as well as availability of malaria commodities in health facilities. Impact data, such as anemia and malaria prevalence, are collected at least every two to three years. In countries where sufficient intervention time has elapsed (usually four to five years) PMI supports evaluations of impact on mortality in children under five years of age.

Beginning in 2010, PMI, in collaboration with Roll Back Malaria (RBM) and the Global Fund, has supported in-depth evaluations of impact of malaria control, which assess the extent to which the roll out of malaria control interventions has had an impact on all-cause mortality rates among children under the age of five. These evaluations examine mortality reductions over the decade 2000–2010 whereas PMI calculates mortality reductions using baseline data corresponding to when countries joined PMI. All PMI impact evaluations are carried out with national authorities and local scientists and researchers.